Lots of interesting comments by the Giants in the wake of the loss of Steve Smith. Please read the link from late last night.
In terms of the “he said, she said” we will let all of you comment. But clearly there was a major football dropped here. In terms of what Jerry Reese said in his damage control, he is referring to how Smith walked on the Giants in the end. As we speculated in the comments yesterday, Smith probably did this because he was pissed off at how the Giants shafted him after his injury.
One thing is clear. The Giants offered Smith less money than what the Eagles offered. Given that $2M in guaranteed money seemed low by consensus, the Giants offered him (“MUCH”?) less, which Smith felt was not good faith bargaining. And Pete points out that Reese called his handling of the Smith bidding as “responsible”..?! That does not fit. Reese got caught with his pants down. Just come clean Jerry and admit you blew this one.
Coughlin is upset with all of the talent that has left. Reese says the Giants have a plan and that they are going to the playoffs this year.
The Giants have to move forward with who they have. They can point to all of the good possibilities they have at WR in deflecting the loss of Smith, but they certainly cannot deflect the vacuum at TE. And even if the Giants have enough WRs to go forward, they certainly do not have a WR of Steve Smith’s capabilities (with the exception of Hakeem Nicks, when healthy). So we as fans need to be spared the bs about how everyone else is going to fill the void. Guys like Hixon, Cruz, Barden, Thomas et al are capable of helping, but none of them are Pro Bowl receivers who Eli Manning can completely rely on the way that Manning could rely on Smith. And by the way, if Smith was such an injury liability, why is Tom Coughlin so irate at not being able to counteroffer vs the Eagles?
There is one thing that Reese said that sells the fans short…
On whether he’s bothered by the perception that his team has taken a step back: “I’m not bothered by that because that’s mostly fans who say that kind of stuff and they really don’t understand the process. We have good players on the team. We’re not looking to go out and make every sexy splash that can be made.”
With the exception of Pete’s asking about Zach Miller and Jermon Bushrod, hardly sexy splash guys, we here on this blog have not been going crazy about making oodles of new free agency acquisitions. In fact, we defended Reese in how he handled the Bradshaw and Burress negotiations. So UltimateNYG NY Giants Blog does not take kindly to the perception that fans do not understand the process. The diehard fans who follow this blog and most of the other major blogs in NY understand enough of what goes on, how cap dollars are spent, and (generally speaking) what it takes to manage these resources. And this is precisely why we rant at how an average Center in Baas can get $11.5M guaranteed when we know that Boss and Smith are not yet signed. So the street works both ways, Mr. Reese. Our commenters ask about guys like LBer Kirk Morrison before the 2010 season because we know we have vulnerabilities at that position. We ask why the Giants keep passing on LBers in the draft and keep drafting Defensive Linemen. Yet we see for the second or third time how the Giants coaches in 2011 once again have to make Mathias Kiwanuka, a Defensive End, into a LBer. So please, Mr. Reese, do not patronize us.
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